Honky Tonk Heroes
by Ih8tuberculosis
Summary: OC goes out with the boys to get a certain celibate cowboy off of her mind. Things go the way we all want them to go.


Here I was again, pushed up against the same old dresser in the same old saloon in Armadillo. I let the young rancher pull clumsily on the strings holding my corset together, and a low moan escaped him when my breasts bounced free. He buried his face in them, kissing and sucking on my nipples, and I gasped, imagining rougher, bigger hands cupping them, a more observant mouth caressing the perfect spots. He was too hesitant for me; too grateful. He didn't know how badly I needed him to dominate me if only to give credence to the fantasy.

Every time I tried to forget, it ended up like this. Imagining him while I was with someone else. Afterwards, I always felt so guilty, but for one shining moment…

I sunk to my knees, pulling down his suspenders. His excitement was palpable. He'd talked smoothly at the bar, but I knew that he had no experience with the rare breed of sexually liberated women. He was used to disinterested prostitutes and the lawful women he had known who had to worry about propriety. I wore pants and bathed in rivers and no one gave me shit about what I did in private as long as I brought a condom. Honestly, I was eating this man alive. I needed an equal.

But Arthur didn't fall in love, and he certainly didn't fuck. When I got drunk and flirted with him, he would just stare with a sad look in those blue eyes. Disappointed, maybe. He would make me feel our age difference. Make me feel silly and small. He would never be mine.

Suddenly, I felt sick. I finished the man off, for, he was just a boy, same age as me I'd guess. He deserved to sleep with some nice lawful, girl. I pretended I didn't know what I was doing to him as he tried to pull away a second too late, and he spilled in my mouth, gasping.

"I, god, I'm sorry," he apologized earnestly.

"That's ok, it was fun," I lied. Poor boy. He was so nice and should have been just right for me. He left, but not before asking if we'd see each other again. _Lord._

I pulled my clothes back on and tried to tame my hair in the mirror. My lips were swollen from my efforts and my eyes were bright. Downstairs, I was surprised to see Arthur still at the bar, drinking and writing in his journal. Javier, Charles, and Bill had gone upstairs too, and I assumed that Arthur would have headed back to camp to avoid a lonely night. When I got closer, I could see that Arthur was not writing, but drawing what looked like a human figure.

"What's that?" I asked nonchalantly.

Arthur, jumping, snapped the book closed. "Jesus, woman."

"I'm sorry," I said, "Didn't mean to scare you."

"Things not work out with lover boy, or work out too fast?"

"Both. Think I'm done with it altogether."

"Sure."

We were always both succinct, but a tension hung in the air this time. His presence beside me bothered me, a feeling that I hadn't gotten used to after all these years. He had grown his beard out in the last few weeks, covering the scar I loved so much on his chin, but his hair was neatly trimmed and pomaded. He sat as he always did, relaxed, with his thighs spread and his elbows resting on the table, gun belt slung low on his hips. His full lips were parted to allow a lazy cigarette to hang from them. I couldn't take it much longer, always being next to him but never allowed to touch.

"Well, what were you drawing?"

Arthur flushed.

"Nothin', just some plants I found this mornin'. The boys still up there?" _Ah_. He had been slowly moving the book to his satchel as we sat. I snatched it.

"No!" he barked. I did not capitulate, jumping out of my chair and protecting it in a power stance. Arthur trucked me, tackling me to the ground and breaking my fall with his arms. I held the book tight, but he pried it out of my fingers and slid it across the floor.

The bartender looked on in alarm, unsure if he was seeing a man attack a woman or a byproduct of drunken passion. To his credit, I was alarmingly wet from the feeling of Arthur's body pinning me to the ground, so much more so than when a stranger was touching my naked breasts.

"I give up!" I yelled, but, realizing how close Arthur's lips were to mine, my voice dropped to a whisper. It was suddenly difficult to breathe, let alone speak. There was a hard heat pressing into me, but, it couldn't be. He was suffocating me with his breath on my face and the smell from his neck. It was a scent that had danced just out of my reach for years, but now, breathing it in, the wood smoke and leather, it was all too overwhelming.

"If it was of Mary, I wasn't gonna make fun. I was just curious," I choked out of my dry mouth, more bitterly than intended.

Arthur rolled us over, but held onto me, leaving me perched on his chest. The hardness was… absolutely what I thought it was. My heart skipped.

"If she only knew how lucky she was," I continued, emboldened by his arousal. His face was impassable, but I noted his halting breaths beneath me. The bartender, rather than be complicit in our late night shenanigans, had retired to back room.

"Seems like you and I both can't help but pour all our love into the one person who seems hellbent on throwing it away."

The tight look in Arthur's eyes softened. His face betrayed how hard his brain was working. "I ain't thought about her in quite a while," he said carefully, "and I wasn't drawin' her. Sometimes jealousy can do quite a job on a man."

He reached for the journal and handed it to me gravely. He closed his eyes beneath me and covered his face with his hands as I sat up to straddle him. The page fell open to a sketch of a woman. She sat with her back turned to the viewer, ass round and full, but her shoulders turned to invite the viewer in, lips swollen, hair messy, and one hand slipping down to feel herself. I knew who she was, I had just seen her in the mirror upstairs, but, somehow, it was unbelievable.

"You bastard."

He looked crushed.

"I know. It was wrong of me. I didn't think anyone was gonna see it."

He always insisted on misunderstanding. Anger overcame me, and I pulled us both to our feet.

"I've been trying to get over you since I was fifteen!" I hollered. "I thought you didn't care at all. But you do, don't you? All this time you just wanted us both to suffer, you masochistic asshole!"

Arthur's face was soft. No matter how difficult he was, it was always hard to stay angry at him because he clearly took every word to heart. Every harsh word from Mary or Dutch stuck with him. I wonder if all the kind things I've said to him ever took root the same way.

He pulled me close, burying his face in my hair.

"If we were together, I'd just hurt you. This life don't take kindly to two people in love."

_In love._

"You hurt me more by blowin' me off. Don't you see that we're perfect for each other, always have been?"

"I don't deserve you."

"I love you. Deserves got nothin' to do with it."

I kissed him then. We always communicated better without words, and I channeled every bit of pent up need and admiration into the embrace. A few wet tears pressed between our faces, but I didn't know if they were his or mine. He led me upstairs then, into the same room where I had been so miserable twenty minutes ago.

This time my legs did not hit the back of the dresser. Arthur laid me down gently in the bed and continued to kiss my neck and chest, hands roaming purposefully over all the places I had always ached for him to touch. When I reached up to him, he firmly pinned my wrists to the bed.

Yes. This is exactly how I imagined him.

The sounds that came out of my mouth were foreign to me as he spread my legs and ran his thumb over my swollen slit. He buried his face in my pussy like he was starving, his nose nudging my clit as his tongue lapped up my wetness. He then tongued slow circles around my clit, flicking or slowing unpredictably when I moaned or gasped.

"Oh, Arthur," I moaned hazily.

"Good?" he asked, pressing the flat of his tongue to me like he knew exactly how good it was. I groaned in response.

"Good. I've had years to think about exactly how you'd like it."

"Please, Arthur."

"Please, what?"

"I need you in me."

This time he let me feel him. I unbuttoned his blue shirt and pulled off his pants, cupping the erection that was leaking through his union suit. As I peeled back the final layer and gazed upon the body that I had longed for, he grew visibly uncomfortable.

Wordlessly, I kissed each scar. One across his ribs where he'd been slashed by a wolf, gunshot wound on his left bicep, permanent bramble scratches on his thighs. The soft hairs on his chest and stomach tickled my breasts as I moved down his body. His cock, large and red and aching, twitched against his thigh. I pressed him into my pussy, and together we sighed with relief. He grabbed my hips, my ass, grinding himself deep inside of me, but I resisted his pace, languidly rocking into him.

The range of expression on his face was nothing like I could have predicted, and I couldn't help the whimpers that cascaded out of my mouth when he gazed up at me with such lust and pleasure. His eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks, and, for a moment, he appeared younger, as if he was at peace.

It didn't last for long. Like a wild horse resisting instruction, Arthur tired of my teasing pace. In what seemed like one fluid movement, he lifted me off of him, flipping me on my stomach, two fingers exerting a pleasing pressure on my clit. I lifted my ass and spread myself for him, smiling into the sheets as he cursed at the view. A sharp smack on my ass followed by his rough penetration wiped the smirk off my face. In this position, he filled me up so completely that the pressure was nearly unbearable. He brushed the hair off of my neck and pressed his face to the spot, whispering filthy encouragements in my ear. I humped into the fingers that were so masterfully bringing me to the edge. His cock bottomed out in me, his strokes purposeful and deep.

"Arthur, oh," I cried inarticulately.

"Yes, darlin', show me," he whispered, breath hot on my neck.

I came then, clenching around him and crying out. With a low groan he let me ride out my orgasm before pulling out and coming on my ass and back. I recovered just in time to watch his face contort in ecstasy over my shoulder.

For a long time I just lay like that, finally sated, remotely feeling him towel me off. I grabbed his hand and pulled him into bed with me, snuggling into his beautiful broad chest. He laughed, and the rumble made me grin against him.

"You might lose me, you know," he said gruffly, "You're about the only person wants me alive."

"Occupational hazard."

"So you're not worried?"

"Not the way I love you."

"We'll find a way, won't we, maybe get a ranch out here somewhere?"

"Sure, pretty boy, but for now just hold me."


End file.
